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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29381076">Half of a Whole</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oliver__Niko/pseuds/Oliver__Niko'>Oliver__Niko</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types, Pocket Monsters: Sword &amp; Shield | Pokemon Sword &amp; Shield Versions</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Family, Found Family, Gen, Grandparents &amp; Grandchildren, Grief/Mourning, Hopeful Ending, Past Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 07:01:36</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,881</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29381076</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oliver__Niko/pseuds/Oliver__Niko</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Twelve years ago, Opal took Bede in when he had no one else. Now he has to process how he can live life without her.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Beet | Bede &amp; Poplar | Opal</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>18</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Half of a Whole</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>My father is playing through Pokémon Shield at the moment, and our shared love for Bede made me want to create for him again. Here is a oneshot that I deeply enjoyed writing despite the harsher theme.</p><p>I hope you enjoy!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The beauty of Ballonlea is already ethereal enough to be mistaken as fantasy. The constant magical glow, sheer height of the mushrooms which grow there, seem to hold a sense of wonder similar to the magnificence of Pokémon that humankind still do not quite have a grasp on.</p><p>If Bede had a single word to describe this beauty, he believes he would choose ‘dreamlike’. The sensation he feels now as puts one foot in front of the other doesn’t quite match the positivity this word implies. Dreamlike seems to describe something wonderful, something that can only be achieved within one’s wildest fantasies. This airiness beneath Bede’s feet, how there is still a part of him struggling to grasp how this is real at all, could not be further from those emotions.</p><p>Should this be alike to any kind of dreams, the only possible option is a nightmare.</p><p>All of this has been. She had simply seemed so bright, so <em>alive, </em>that every year which brought a decline in her health didn’t seem as though it should be real. Opal should not have shown the signs of <em>dying, </em>ever. Her passions, her ferocity combined with utmost care as she trained Bede under her, all of the extravagant and gorgeous fashion she chose to wear—despite how death is inevitable for a life as frail and fleeting as a human’s, Bede could never, and still doesn’t fully, understand how exactly all this could lead to this outcome. Of a world where Opal doesn’t exist.</p><p>Bede shivers as the bitter winter chill escapes through his clothes. He pulls the magenta coat he wears a little tighter around himself with one hand, his other ensuring to keep a grasp on a bundle of flowers. Their petals blow gently in the world, coloured with all the pinks and purples Bede could gather. He reckoned that the colours she loved on herself and adored so dearly on him were the most fitting. Hopefully it compensates for the two months it has taken him to do this.</p><p>All noise around him fades into a melancholic silence. His walking has taken him to a secret area he’s sure only a spare few know about; a garden in Ballonlea, with flowers blooming all year round, those fascinating glowing mushrooms and a small statue dedicated to Alcremie, the Pokémon Opal always loved the most.</p><p>In front of this statue is a new addition. A flawless tombstone of gleaming lavender, with a floral design etched into the corners. She picked it for herself, as she did her coffin. Only the most stylish for this woman after all.</p><p>He walks closer, closer, until he is standing on the ground in front of it. She was cremated, although it still feels as though she is in the earth beneath his feet. The thought is both horrifying and strangely comforting. Even if it’s by spirit, he would prefer for her to know he is here.</p><p>“I’m sorry.” He wishes a better greeting could leave his lips, but he finds that the only thing he can manage to say is this shaky apology. “I should have visited you sooner than this. I simply … I was too afraid to do so.”</p><p>His grip tightens for a moment on the stems of her flowers, before he forces himself to loosen his grip. The heart in his chest pounds, quite similar to how it had done so when she was teaching him and her strictness came into play, although the difference between then and now is far greater. He had been excited back then. <em>Thrilled, </em>even, because he finally had a chance to follow a path he truly wanted. Opal was giving him the opportunity to present his worth to the world, to show what he was capable of. It was everything he ever wanted.</p><p>The increasing rate of his heartbeat now is for a number of reasons that are the opposite. His sorrow, his fear over the life he must now lead without her guidance, how frightened he is over saying or doing the wrong thing now he stands here. It might seem silly. He cannot guarantee she is listening, but he still wants to be the best version of himself for her. He will never stop striving for that.</p><p>He blinks and curses the tears he sends trickling down his cheeks for just a moment, before past words play in his ears.</p><p>“<em>It’s okay to cry, my dear. Do you know how many times </em>I <em>have cried in my life? It is not a sign of weakness. Showing your emotions is a very brave thing, and I want you to always be honest with me about how you feel.”</em></p><p>His eyes close, and he pushes aside the shame ingrained in him from such a young age. Opal was not Rose; she did not ask the impossible from Bede, nor did she ever expect him to suppress his true emotions. She was strict, yes, but in no way, shape or form did she ever pressure him or force him into the shell created by the guardian who came before her.</p><p>She wanted Bede to be himself. She wanted him to shine in the best of his abilities, but from a foundation formed by everything that makes him <em>him. </em>And that would never stop all because she is no longer around to say it.</p><p>“It was hard to come and see you,” Bede finally says. “I’ve never lost someone I cared about this much. I lost my parents, and until the chairman took me in, no one stayed long enough for me to care about them. So losing you has just—” he inhales sharply, another tear falling from his eye, “it’s like losing a part of myself.”</p><p>The only way he can describe it is a hole inside his heart. Though Opal helped Bede to heal on his own and he grew through his own resolve, she still held such a strong place in it, Bede finally understood what people mean when they say someone is another half. He never hears these words in a non-romantic context, but this is the best way he can describe her.</p><p>She was family. She allowed Bede to finally feel whole, to let his eyes shine for the first time, and he’s not sure how he can live without this in his life anymore.</p><p>The future is terrifying, and the present is as well, but he can at least keep speaking through the latter.</p><p>“I didn’t realise what Rose was like with me until I met you. I didn’t realise how much I was truly being used, that he said all the things I wanted to hear to manipulate me into what he wanted. He shaped me into what was best fitting for him, and the moment I stepped out of line from that, I was discarded to the side like I was nothing.” Bede’s head leans back, closing his eyes with the coolness of snow falling against his face, feeling the strands of a ponytail brush against his back. “I’m an adult now. So many years have passed since then, and sometimes, I still feel as though I have to live in order to please him. That I won’t be safe if I’m not doing exactly what is expected of me, all the time.”</p><p>A child taken at their most vulnerable, when they have nothing to lose and everything to gain, must have been the perfect blank slate for a man desperate for power. Of course Bede would do absolutely everything he could to please him. He was given a home, safety, an entire meaning to his life when he previously could only think of survival.</p><p>He supposes that this need to survive never quite left him when under Rose’s care.</p><p>“I didn’t know what to do,” Bede continues. “What use would there be in him keeping me around if I no longer had to gather the Wishing Stars? Nothing. There was nothing, so all I could think about was how I could make everything up to him, prove myself enough so he brought me back. I thought that was my only option. But … but then <em>you </em>came, and you gave me a different goal to strive for. You gave me everything.”</p><p>As the two travelled back to Ballonlea back then, he remembers all the questions he had bubbling up inside. Positive ones, where he wanted to ask more about her plans and the potential she saw in him, what was in store for him now. The negative prevented him asking these, where he feared how long she would take him under his wing and how little would it take for him to be discarded again.</p><p>Those answers came to him naturally in time, as he began to build his life with her.</p><p>“I finally had a purpose, something that let me live for <em>me, </em>not those who were using me. You acknowledged my suffering, you listened and you simply … You believed in me.” The last four words are barely above a whisper. “You believed in me when no one else did, and let me become a better person. Someone who is stronger.”</p><p>Time seemed to flow by as he settled into his role as a gym leader. Every victory and loss taught him something, excited him, and he managed to flourish when chasing something he realised he was passionate for.</p><p>He began to learn what real joy meant.</p><p>He realised what it means to <em>love </em>something, and someone. More than Opal alone.</p><p>“It’s been twelve years already. Half of my life was spent with you, but it feels like I only started living from that day on. I still—I still can’t comprehend that I have to continue on without you.”</p><p>He acknowledges the bitter coldness of tears against his face, almost stinging from the wind against them; he can tell that he is sobbing, his throat and chest burning, but it’s silent. He’s shed enough of those louder tears.</p><p>Crying because of joy is something else he never experienced before she came along. He wonders if he would be able to ever have something like this again, when true joy in itself seems impossible now.</p><p><em>No, don’t say that. </em>He shakes his head. It hurts more than he can say, and he can only imagine how long it will take for this grief to heal if it ever does so completely. He doesn’t, however, want to give up on this life she has helped him build now she is gone. He doesn’t want any of her kindness to go to waste.</p><p>There are people around him, those he cherishes even if he struggles to express this, still. He has his Pokémon, his friends, his challengers—there are still people he has to keep fighting for. He wants to fight not because he has to, but because that’s what he <em>wants</em> to do.</p><p>He crouches down on the floor, placing the flowers by her grave. At last, he finds the strength to read the engravings on the gravestone: the date of her life, and the quote underneath.</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>
  <em>Forever loved and adored as a fashion icon, a lover of Fairy-Type Pokémon, and as the best grandmother her grandson could have ever had.</em>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you for reading!</p><p>Feel free to find me on Twitter @Oliver__Niko for my artwork and gaming posts, as well as nikobynight for my FE3H specific related creations/posts.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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